


Not Alone

by sebastian2017



Series: Hawkdevil [1]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Canon Disabled Character, Deaf Clint Barton, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not Canon Compliant, Secret Identity, The Avengers Are Good Bros, rooftop talks, the classic 'the Avengers meet Daredevil and find out he's Matt' trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22259797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/pseuds/sebastian2017
Summary: After Daredevil is accidentally outed to the Avengers, Clint makes sure to reach out and let him know that he's not alone on the team. And to knock a couple of ableist microagressions on their butt. That too.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Matt Murdock
Series: Hawkdevil [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614460
Comments: 20
Kudos: 331
Collections: MCU RarePairs Bingo 2019





	Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Square O5 of MCU Rarepairs Bingo: Not Alone
> 
> Verse is a mashup of MCU and 616
> 
> CW: ableism, mentions of Nazis (though they are getting their asses kicked) food,

Okay, so this looks bad. 

The evil alien of the week is defeated, that's good, at least. Only, they'd all taken a bad beating from it. Which. Well, not the worst that could happen. It was pretty standard as far as Avengers business went. That hadn't been the bad part. Daredevil had given a hand this week, as the action had spilled into Hell's Kitchen. But they've done that before and have at least a sort of balance together as a team. So that hadn't really been the bad part either. Just that among the injuries Daredevil had received was a rather scary looking blow to the head that knocked his mask off. Bruce, standing back on first aid duty instead of Code Green, had rushed over to check Daredevil over as soon as the battle was over. With the best of intentions, of course, but it wasn't necessarily the wisest move. Which was how the whole group of Avengers found out that the Devil of Hell's Kitchen was blind. That looked pretty bad. No other way around it. 

Daredevil was, understandably, pretty pissed about being outed this way. He'd run off immediately, parkouring away on the rooftops before any of them could say anything. And Clint's just stuck standing there, looking between all the rest of the Avengers in confusion, to make sure he hadn't just made it up somehow. But nope, from the way the rest of the Avengers are all just looking around at each other, gaping and confused, Clint would wager he hadn't made it up. 

"So... I guess that's a no on all of us getting post battle pizza together?" Clint asks, desperate to break the awkward silence. 

Tony's faceplate slides back so he can talk without the mechanical edge to his voice and he says, "If we do, it seems  _ Matthew Murdock  _ has decided not to join us." 

"Who?" Steve asks, frowning as he looks up from the phone where he's scheduling their transportation back to the tower. 

"Daredevil. His name's Matthew Murdock. There aren't too many blind men in Hell's Kitchen with his height, build, and most importantly, ninja fighting skills. It only took Jarvis a second or two to connect the dots," Tony explains. 

Clint groans. He has a feeling this won't help them get Daredevil back in their good graces anytime soon. "Tones, he's been all secretive about his secret identity since before we met. I have a feeling he wouldn't appreciate hearing that you went snooping for his name." 

"How am I supposed to send an apology gift basket if I don't know where he lives?" Tony asks, like that makes perfect sense. 

And of course, because nothing is ever truly peaceful and simple with the Avengers, this sets them off on a wave of bickering for the whole trip back to the Tower, about whether a gift basket is appropriate in this situation, if Daredevil -  _ Matt -  _ is ever going to work with them again, and what exactly one puts in a 'Sorry we accidentally found out your secret identity and that you're blind' gift basket. There's also, of course, a great deal of contemplation about how Daredevil pulls off all his crime fighting while blind. Clint does his best to ignore all of that. He might end up snapping at all of them if he actually listens and besides, it feels gross and invasive to sit around talking about Daredevil like this when he's not around and had clearly put so much effort into keeping them from knowing this part of him. He and Daredevil might not be much more than work acquaintances, but this feels like the bare minimum of respect Clint can afford him. 

When they get to the Tower, Clint doesn't bother sticking around for pizza with everyone else. He just grabs a box for himself and disappears up to his floor. He feels bad not making the trip home to spend the night in his own apartment with Lucky, but he's far too exhausted and right now, nothing sounds better than just crashing on one of Tony's too soft beds. He also feels a tinge of guilt for not sticking around during post fight pizza, since he'd been one of the loudest driving forces behind starting this tradition. But they're still talking about Matt, wondering how he manages to fight crime so efficiently and nah, Clint's not in the mood to hear so much skepticism and vaguely ableist inspiration porn after getting his butt whooped by weird alien blobs.

He tries to just write it off as exhaustion from the battle, but he's probably as easy to read as ever to anyone who really knows him. He's not surprised when, a few minutes after he's left to his floor, Nat shows up as well, holding a second box of pizza and a pack of beers. 

"You up for company?" she asks. 

"For my favorite partner in crime? Any time," Clint promises, clearing up space from the mess he has on his coffee table so they can sit around the carpet and eat. It almost feels like a break during one of their stake outs, back before they were fighting in the big leagues. 

Natasha snorts softly. "I think crime is sort of the opposite of what we're supposed to be doing, Clint. But if you ever feel like handing in your Avengers ID and going to cause trouble somewhere, you call me up and I'll be right there with you." 

"Always knew I could count on you." Clint grins and opens up two bottles for them, so they can enjoy their pizza the way God intended. Sitting on a carpet and washing it down with cheap beer. 

"Always. So, should I expect you to lead the Avengers in sensitivity training some time this week?" she asks. Which, yeah, Clint's never known her to beat around the bush unless she's trying to extract information from an unsuspecting victim. "Or are you going to do it the Barton way and give them the cold shoulder until just roughing them up when they get insufferable?" 

Clint laughs and takes a swig of his beer before saying anything. "I think I'm gonna give 'em a few days for the novelty to wear off, see if they fix themselves up before a good old fashioned Barton intervention." 

"That's awfully generous of you," Natasha notes. 

He's sure she would have gone in with fists swinging by now, but Clint doesn't feel like fighting his team. He kind of likes being a part of something bigger than himself and unlike some of his work for SHIELD, this all feels like it's making a real difference in people's lives, not just doing the government's dirty work. Besides, this isn't even his battle to fight. It's Daredevil's. He'll give anyone on his team a good tongue lashing if they say something truly out of line, but he doesn't presume that Daredevil needs anyone sticking up for him. Clint knows he would be pretty annoyed at anyone who thought he needed any help sticking up for himself without at least asking him first. 

Of course, that approach works best if he actually has a chance to talk to Daredevil and get an idea as to how he's feeling about this whole ordeal and how he'd like to proceed. In spite of what's probably best for all of them, an idea starts forming in the back of Clint's mind that he knows he won't be able to shake. 

***

Okay, so superhero update, patrolling as a vigilante absolutely sucks. Like, big time. Even worse than having to hear Fury's pissed off voicemails because someone on the team didn't hand in their debrief in time. Which is, by the way, as annoying as it sounds. But Clint would even do that every single day for the rest of his career if it means never having to patrol again. Seriously, he has a whole new found level of respect for Spiderman and Daredevil and Iron Fist and whatever other new vigilante has popped up in the city since the last time Clint checked Twitter. With the Avengers, Clint gets to hang around his apartment or the Tower or the Quinjet or somewhere else with climate control and plenty of snacks, waiting to get called off. And when they do go out into battle, Clint knows exactly who the bad guys he's supposed to beat up are. More often than not, they're dressed in obnoxiously bright colors and announcing to the whole world that they are very bad guys with bad intentions. Easy peasy. 

Patrolling, though? It's nowhere near as cool and charmingly badass as viral videos on Twitter make it seem. Mostly, it's hopping around from rooftop to rooftop and hoping to run into trouble. Normally, the exact opposite of what Clint does! And to be fair, he'd chosen a pretty terrible day to do this for the first time. Note to self for future instances: don't go patrolling on Friday nights when the Knicks are playing or you'll spend half your time wondering whether the screaming is someone asking for help or some drunken bro celebrating because his team just scored. Seriously. Big props to the city vigilantes for figuring out this whole gig. 

Clint's never going to do this patrolling thing again if he can help it. He's really just here to look for Daredevil, but he'd feel silly just sitting around on a rooftop doing nothing all night. Similarly, he would feel like a dick if he goes around the city without helping people he comes across, so... Here he is. Hawkeye: Avenger by day, vigilante by night. It would have a nice ring to it if patrolling didn't suck so much. 

He's taking a little midnight break to chug some coffee and contemplate on how very much he hates patrolling when suddenly, there's someone sitting down next to him. And Jesus H. Christ, he knew Daredevil was pretty much a New York Ninja, but Clint's not so easy to sneak up on. He might act like a bit of a fool sometimes, but he's worked as a spy just like Nat. He's not exactly oblivious to his surroundings. 

"Christ, Double D, you're going to give me a heart attack," Clint complains. Thankfully, he hadn't spilled his coffee in his surprise. If he had spilled his coffee, it would have definitely meant war. 

"Double D," Daredevil echoes. If it was possible to hear someone roll their eyes behind a mask, Clint is sure he's hearing it now. "You know my name, I know you do. I got your... gift basket." 

"Aww, no, did Tony really send that?" Clint groans. "I told him not to. I think we all told him not to. But that's Tony. Gets some stupid idea in his head and there's no talking him down. Was it at least a good gift basket?" 

"There was some artisanal chocolates. My coworkers enjoyed those," Daredevil agrees. 

"Well. Tony's good for something, I guess." Clint shrugs, then remembers that Daredevil can't see him, so after hesitating for a moment, he adds, "I just shrugged. Uh, for what it's worth, I overheard your name, because Tony was pretty loud about it when we were heading back to the Tower, but I tried to avoid all the other information he got on your file. It's none of our business. If you want me to forget it, consider it done. Poof! No secret identities in my mind." 

"I would hope Stark knows to be discreet, but... I know better than to think we can put that one back in the box between all of us. You can call me Matt. Though I appreciate your offer, Hawkeye," Daredevil - or Matt, it seems - says. 

That's probably as close to an olive branch as he's going to receive, so he's quick to take it. "Thanks, Matt. And you can call me Clint, obviously. I mean, I'd be pretty offended if you didn't. No pressure." 

"Clint, then," Matt agrees, snorting softly. 

"Good. I'd hate to have to toss you off the edge of this building. Though... I mean, I dunno if I could. You're a straight up ninja, man. I'd ask where you got those ninja skills, but I feel like the answer might be one of those 'I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you' and I'm not too keen on dying on a rooftop in Hell's Kitchen. No offence, I know you're a little possessive over this place." Clint shrugs. He could probably keep rambling on for a while longer, but his coffee is waiting, so he stops to have a drink of coffee.

Matt hesitates, before asking, "Do you normally talk this much while on missions?" 

"Mission?" Clint scoffs. "Please, I put in a good two hours of this patrolling shit and managed to find you to apologize. Mission accomplished, I'm off the clock now." 

"They must do apologies differently up in your tower, huh?" Matt asks. 

And even though Clint can tell he's just teasing, Clint still feels the need to give a better apology. "You're right. I'm sorry. I can't speak for the rest of the team, but I'm sure they're sorry, too. Bruce is just a doctor used to work in war zones. Sometimes he just jumps in to fix things without thinking about much more than just stabilizing a patient. None of us meant to out your secret identity." 

"I'm sure you all spent the night gossiping about me being a clean cut Catholic lawyer, not about my being blind," he remarks, sarcasm dripping off his words. 

Clint sighs. "That too. Yeah." 

"Yeah." Matt stands up to leave, but Clint's not ready to give up this fledgling peace between them, so he reaches up to grab Matt's hand and hold him in place. 

"Hey, wait a second. Please?" he pleads. "Listen, SHIELD has kind of a blacklist of this in the press since lots of articles can be in bad taste, so I dunno if you knew about it, since most people just kinda figure it out by seeing my hearing aids in place, but I'm Deaf. So I get that people can be a pain about things like this, even when they mean well." 

"So that's the humming you always have on you," Matt says. He sits back down without much more fight. "I figured it was a SHIELD earpiece." 

"Nah. I mean, Tony got my aids all rigged up to be my comm when we're out fighting, too, but I use 'em way more to actually hear than to chat with the superhero club," Clint answers, shrugging a bit. 

"Is that why the Avengers sent you to come talk to me?" he asks. 

Clint sputters on his coffee a bit. "What? You think they sent me? Aww, jeez, no, it's a wonder you didn't toss me out as soon as you saw me if that's what you thought. No, man, I came here by myself. Didn't feel right not to reach out and apologize for what happened. And be, I dunno, disabled superhero buddies or something." 

Matt snorts and shakes his head, though it holds no malice as he stands up. "Maybe keep workshopping that name. I should get back to work now. Thank you for stopping by." 

"Sure thing, Matt. Good luck patrolling. And y'know, if you need anything from the Avengers or we run into each other again..." Clint shrugs, and then, again, remembers Matt can't see it. "Just remember you're not alone. Shrugged again, by the way." 

"I know," is the last thing Matt says before hopping off the roof and swinging off to fight crime somewhere. 

And now Clint gets to go home with two overwhelming thoughts in his head. One: patrolling  _ sucks _ . Two: were Matt's ninja powers powerful enough to tell him when someone shrugged? Damn. What a night. 

***

As it turns out, they all have a few weeks to mull everything over before the next time the team sees Matt again. They haven't talked about the issue too much, except for one unofficial meeting where they make it an Official Rule that Tony is  _ not  _ allowed to send gift baskets to vigilante consultants on behalf of the whole team without putting it to a vote first. Clint doesn't see Matt anymore, either, though not for lack of trying. A few times, he wanders through Hell's Kitchen for a late night coffee or something, hoping to run into Matt, but no such luck. 

Their next meeting is entirely unplanned. Clint's off with the team infiltrating some shady warehouse in Hell's Kitchen, hoping to gain information by breaking up a meeting between the Sons of Serpent and an offshoot of HYDRA. Getting interrupted by Daredevil is always a possibility during their missions in Hell's Kitchen, but they hadn't bothered to reach out to him in advance for this one. So while no one is necessarily surprised when Daredevil swings in halfway through and kicks some Nazi scum right across the face, they're not really prepared either. That's probably where they go wrong. Clint should have put his foot down and insisted for that Barton style sensitivity training way before they ran into Daredevil again. 

They've fought together before. They don't have the same easy rhythm between them as just Clint and the rest of his teammates have, but that's mostly because of how much practice the Avengers have had together. Certainly, fighting with Daredevil isn't something they have no clue how to do. Even with a few kinks here and there, they've kicked ass together plenty of times. So there's really no reason for everyone on the team to act like they have no idea what to do next or unsure of whether Matt can hold his own. They  _ know  _ that Matt could probably take all these C-list losers by himself if he wanted to. This is an Avengers level mission for interrogation and PR reasons more than anything else. But, of course, trust the living trainwreck of a team called the Avengers to manage to make a mess of that, too. 

"Daredevil, on your ten o'clock!" Cap calls out, tossing his shield to take down some Hydra goon coming up on Matt. 

"I know!" Matt calls out. It's a testament to that Catholic patience that he only sounds the slightest bit frustration, even when his billy club, having already been positioned to take out the henchman, gets caught up in the impact of Cap's shield and tossed out to the other side of the room. 

Clint gives Cap his very best 'disappointed teammate' look for underestimating Matt, but it one, probably gets lost in the midst of battle and two, is shockingly hard to look disappointed at Captain America. Matt takes out another pair of racist dickwads on his way to get back his billy club. Clint would expect nothing less from the Daredevil they've gotten to know by now. Unfortunately, it seems the rest of the team is suffering from a case of amnesia and is forgetting exactly how well Daredevil can hold his own in fights like these. 

"There's a broken window about five feet to your left, Horn Head," Tony warns. And if that's not enough, he flies his suit over to stand between Matt and the window, just in time to end up with an armful of Nazi Henchman in his arms as he interferes with Matt pushing someone out towards said window. 

"I know!" Matt yells again, his patience obviously starting to crumble a bit. 

It continues that way until all the baddies are on the floor, one way or another. Every few minutes, someone will try to yell out helpful advice to Daredevil and Daredevil replies with ever increasing frustration. Clint pretends not to notice when, near the end of the fight, Daredevil's billy clubs start 'accidentally' missing their mark and hitting several Avengers instead. Clint is pretty proud when he notices that he comes away pretty much unscathed from Matt's frustration. When they finally bring down the last of the henchmen, Matt disappears back into the night within seconds of the body hitting the ground. Not so much as a goodbye, though Clint can't exactly blame him. 

"So... I guess Horn Head won't be joining us for pizza today either, huh?" Tony asks, pulling back his faceplate now that it's safe to do so. 

Clint rolls his eyes as he goes to make sure all the baddies are adequately restrained so they can be hauled off to jail or brought into questioning, depending on how useful they seem to be. "Well, obviously not with the way you're all acting." 

"The way we're acting? Now, I know Daredevil isn't known for being the easiest team player, but he comes into a team fight, he can't be surprised when people start treating him like a teammate," Cap insists. 

"Which only works when you actually treat him like a teammate, instead of someone you need to babysit. You're lucky he didn't sock you all in the face before taking off," he grumbles. 

"Babysit? C'mon, Hawkguy, we were being helpful! That's way different from babysitting," Tony insists. 

"Uh..." One of the Sons of Serpent henchmen currently tied up and being taken to the Quinjet for questioning at SHIELD looks between all of them, a little confused. "Is this the sort of conversion you should be having in front of one of your prisoners?" 

"Oh, shut up, Evil Neo Nazi Dude," Clint insists, and takes great pleasure in pulling out a roll of duct tape from his utility belt to slap over the guy's mouth. (Yes, he walks around with duct tape. No, he's not ashamed of it. Yes, it's come in handy plenty of times.) 

"He does, unfortunately, make a solid point. Let's put a pin in this and come back once we've handed these guys over," Cap agrees. 

And once Cap says something, it's pretty much decided, so they all pile back into their Quinjet, except for Tony, who zooms off with his suit and says he'll meet them at the Tower. Which is not unusual for Tony, though Clint is sure he's also a little grumpy about Clint calling him out on his behavior in battle. Tony can be a bit dramatic with a shortish temper, so Clint knows better than to take it personally. Dealing with this is all just part of Avengers training. (Okay, not really, but Clint has very vocally advocated for it to be included whenever they go around recruiting new members.) Tony will be fine by the end of pizza, he's sure. 

As much of a pain in the ass as dealing with these guys can be, it's not really a Code Green, so Bruce is just hanging around the Quinjet as they go back in. Usually, he'll take a look at any of their scrapes and make some small talk about how it's gone. Today, though, it seems Bruce can read the room well enough to know that there is some undeniable tension between all of them, so he mostly stays quiet while patching up their scrapes. When they get back to the tower, Tony already has pizza and drinks set out for all of them, apparently recovered from his little tantrum earlier in the evening. 

"Okay, Legolas, since apparently, you're the Devil's best friend these days, spill the details. How are we being dicks, how can we be better, are our chances of snagging ourselves a sexy lawyer on the team dead, et cetera et cetera," Tony says. He pushes a bottle of Clint's favorite artisanal brew and a slice of pizza into his hand before sitting him down at the head of their table. 

"So something did happen?" Bruce asks, looking between all of them. "It seemed... off, but some of you are so broody on a regular basis, it's hard to know when something's wrong and when you're just being... like that." 

"We had our first run in with Daredevil since the last incident and he wasn't all too happy with us by the end of it. Clint seems to know why," Cap explains. "So we're going to buckle down and stay here until we learn how to do better. Any objections?" 

There's a general mumble of consensus, as well as Thor happily declaring, "Anything to learn how to better fight alongside our brother in arms." 

Within a minute, they're all sat down on the table with their celebratory dinner, staring at Clint and waiting for him to start speaking. Which... okay, yikes, his intention hadn't been to accidentally get himself into the sort of situation where he has to lecture all of them. He makes a much better drinking buddy than lecturer! Natasha just looks amused, probably because they've had plenty of conversations about this before, but everyone else just stares at him expectantly. Nat is also, of course, absolutely no help at all in this situation. 

"Right. So. Recap: Daredevil's blind and we found out accidentally. Kind of a shitty situation to be in, not really anyone's fault. All on the same page again?" he asks, even though of course they're on the same page, they'd all been there when it happened. "Okay, great. So remember how we all treated him before we found out he's blind? With the exact amount of respect and healthy fear someone should treat a badass urban ninja with? Yeah. That shouldn't have changed." 

"I thought it was polite among Midgardians to help others where their own resources might be lacking," Thor speaks up, looking incredibly curious. Clint has a feeling he might have a notebook full of notes about Midgardian culture somewhere. 

"Well... it's all a little complicated, y'know?" Clint shrugs. "Sure, it's nice to help each other, but it's kinda condescending when people assume someone needs help with things they can do themselves. I mean, I'm Deaf, and you guys have all known me that way since we first met, so I guess it wasn't as jarring as finding out about Matt, but it's not entirely different. If one day you showed up and started talking to me loud and slow like I'm some sort of idiot, I'd be pretty pissed, too. And if you all started acting like I can't hold my own out in a fight, even though you've  _ seen me  _ plenty of times? Yeah, I'd probably want nothing to do with any of you, either." 

"I think I understand! My father Odin lost an eye in battle once and the loss made him no less a formidable opponent. I'm sure anyone who said otherwise would have been challenged to a duel by him to prove that's not the case," Thor agrees. 

And not really the sort of example Clint had been thinking of, but eh. He'll take it. "Yeah, exactly like that. And I bet anyone talking smack about your dad was even thinking about how they'd only seen him kick ass with two whole eyes. It's not even like that with Matt. He's been blind since we met him and we never thought he needed looking after in the middle of a fight until we found out. So the fact that you all got all weirdly protective and in his space about it? Yeah, kind of comes off as a dick move." 

"Listen, I love a good round of kumbaya we're all special as much as the next guy," Tony says, "but we pretty regularly fight aliens and supervillains. We need a contingency plan for everything. Especially something like this. Granted, maybe we kind of went around it like dicks today, but it was the best we could do without any details. Sure, we don't treat you any different for being Deaf when we're fighting together, but we also put in plenty of planning and training to handle a situation where your hearing aids short out on us. If Baddie of the Week knows to target you for that or something, we're ready, but if they go for some weakness in however Matt works around his blindness, then we're all caught off guard. Then we all go down. Not just Mr. Horn Head." 

Steve sighs and it's the very official, very intimidating Captain America sigh, so Clint knows he's about to get a mission assignment that'll suck any second now. "Tony's right, but so are you, Clint. We mishandled the situation, but partly because we don't know how to handle the situation at all. And we won't unless Daredevil actually talks to us. We can come up with something that works for everyone. Do you think you could arrange that for us, Clint? A sit down with Daredevil to come up with a plan?" 

"Well..." Clint thinks back to his talk with Matt when this whole problem had first started and how hesitant he'd been to trust them. Then he thought to how upset Matt had seemed when he left the fight earlier and... yeah. That would probably be a difficult one. "I can try. No promises, though. He's not exactly our biggest fan right now." 

And that's that. There's not much more they can do right now until they've talked to Matt and Clint's not about to go into some lengthy, detailed sensitivity training about how to treat disabled superheroes or whatever. His pay for all the Avenging he does is good, but this is definitely not part of his paycheck. He's relatively confident that the team will talk to him if they have any doubts and for now, he really just wants to stuff his face with pizza and beer and not think about the debriefs and interrogations that he and Nat are going to have to do tomorrow. It seems everyone else wants more or less the same thing, because that's that on the informal Daredevil meeting. 

They all fall back into the usual routine of eating pizza, recounting the coolest fight moves in vivid (and exaggerated) detail to Bruce, and gossiping about their lives outside of the team. It's a pretty nice routine. It even ends with a movie night, since they're not quite as tired as they usually are after these things. Clint is  _ very  _ down with a movie night. He makes enough popcorn for the whole lot of them - which is a lot, a lot of popcorn - and settles down with his beer and popcorn. Just as he's starting to get cozy, Bruce comes by and rather shyly sits down next to him. 

"Hey... I know this might be the last thing Daredevil wants to hear, but if I don't get a chance to see him in person again, would you extend an apology on my behalf? Honestly, part of medical training is knowing to be discreet and I failed him in that regard that night," Bruce says, shaking his head in disappointment. 

"Aww, sure thing, Bruce. For what it's worth, he doesn't seem like he'd hold a grudge against you for that," Clint says. In reality, Clint has no idea whether Matt would hold a grudge about that or not, though he hadn't seemed particularly happy when they'd talked on that rooftop. But Bruce is very obviously feeling guilty about the whole thing and Clint is more than willing to tell a little lie to make him feel better. "I think he was just as shaken up as the rest of us, that's all." 

"Hopefully you're right. And hopefully I'll get a chance to apologize properly, but if not... Well, I'd rather he hear it from you than not at all. Thanks, Clint." Bruce pats his knee gratefully and then goes off to make himself tea, since Bruce is pretty much always above this whole beer and popcorn and pizza thing they have going on here. Kind of have to when you have a big green guy living inside you, but that's never stopped Clint from teasing him about it before. 

For now, though, Clint just settles back on the couch to enjoy the rest of the movie. They've had more than enough excitement for one night and as great a guy as Daredevil seems to be, Clint would very much like a bit of a break from thinking about him so much. There'll be time for that later, when he meets up with him for what Clint's dubbed in his mind as the Awkward Avengers Arbitration. 

***

As it turns out, the time Clint has to get ready for the AAA is roughly twenty four hours. And really, he doesn't get ready at all, because it had never been his intention to meet up with Matt so soon after their fight. Unfortunately, through some piss poor planning on his end of things, Clint had planned to meet up with Kate in a cafe at Hell's Kitchen, which leaves him walking through Matt's territory late in the evening when he's trying to make his way onto a train back home. Natasha would be very disappointed in him, he's sure, because he doesn't even notice he's being tailed until Matt drops down in front of him in front of an especially sketchy alley. 

Clint nearly jumps out of his skin. "Jeeeeesus, DD, can you save the scary ninja act for the bad guys? Contrary to popular belief, I'm a valued member of the Avengers, and I'm sure they wouldn't take too kindly to finding out I died of a heart attack in Hell's Kitchen." 

"Did they send you?" Matt asks, apparently choosing to ignore Clint's request, because he has the scary ninja voice turned up to 120%. 

"Nah, man. I was just here meeting my protege for drinks. The caffeinated kind, not the alcoholic kind. Did you know I have a protege?" Clint brags. "None of the other Avengers do, but I'm just that cool." 

Matt manages to stare him down for a second, which is very impressive, considering he achieves it without the actual staring, and then nods. "Good." 

And this time, Clint is a little more prepared, because when Matt makes to leave, back up to his rooftops and shitty patrolling, Clint grabs his arm to hold him in place. "Hey, wait up. No one sent me and I'm not actually in town looking for you, but as long as I'm here, can we talk? I was planning on hunting you down later this week anyway and talking now just saves me a few hours of wandering aimlessly through rooftops." 

"Fine. We can talk on the roof. Less eavesdroppers." And then Matt breaks free of Clint's grip with ease and parkours his way up to the roof. 

Clint isn't used to feeling like he can't keep up with people, except for when he's hanging out with literal super powered individuals, so the tinge of embarrassment he feels when he climbs up after Matt and is very obviously the less experienced of the two at this... yeah, it's a new feeling around civilians. (Does Matt count as a civilian? He'll have to ask Tony how they have him classified later, because despite the many changes to the world as of late, figuring out where exactly to count vigilantes isn't something that's come up yet.) 

Once he's clambered up onto the rooftop, Clint finds Matt sitting down against a wall, looking vaguely amused. And ah. Clint has a feeling he was just tricked into being a guinea pig for Matt's entertainment. Which, oh well, he'll take it if helps their chances of getting Matt to work with them again. He goes to sit down across from Matt and finds himself really wishing he'd had time to prepare this beforehand. But oh well. When have Clint's preferred strategies been anything but jumping in headfirst without adequate planning? 

"So..." he starts, clearing his throat awkwardly. "We were kind of dicks. I mean, to be fair, not  _ me _ . But, my teammates were dicks and I guess part of the Avengers code or whatever is we take the fall for things together, so. Like I said, we were dicks."

"You were," Matt agrees. And leaves it at that which ouch, Clint can't blame him, but he did sort of hope Matt might have at least agreed with the whole Clint not being a dick part. (Not that Clint would have felt very generous in Matt's position but he was voted 'Most Likely To Cry During Movies' in Tony's Avengers Superlatives for a reason.)

Still. Stiff upper lip and all that. Clint nods and keeps going. "Yeah. So. I mean, there's really no excuse for how they acted, but I can vouch for their being a good group of people. They're just... Listen, don't go telling the Daily Bugle or something that Hawkeye's out here talking trash about his team, but as much as I love them, they're all kind of idiots sometimes. And they're usually halfway through doing something before they actually think about any of it, so... Yeah. In summary, sorry my teammates were dicks, they were just trying to help, just in a pretty ableist way that caused more harm than good. I talked with them about it, and they understand that they messed up. And they seem pretty open to learning, too, which is great. And I know them, when they say they'll learn and do better, they mean it. You have my word on that." 

"I hope you're right. Fighting with Captain America really loses its charm when he starts being obnoxiously ableist and interrupting your rhythm," Matt says. 

And that sounds sort of like teasing? Maybe? Hopefully, because teasing is good. Teasing means Matt doesn't want all of them to disappear and teasing probably means he's willing to give them a chance. "Oh, trust me," Clint says, "it loses its charm one way or another. If it's not out in the middle of a fight, it's because you hang out with him one too many times and realize he's actually a massive nerd." 

Matt actually laughs at that, which Clint very quickly decides is his favorite Daredevil Sound so far. "Well. They do say to never meet your heroes."

"Take it from a hero who fights with lots of other heroes, that is  _ excellent  _ advice." Clint nods. "Oh, I just nodded, by the way." 

"I know," Matt says and damn, son of a bitch is definitely teasing him now, Clint is sure of it. 

"You ever going to share your secret weapon about how you pull that off?" he asks, though he suspects he knows the answer. 

Matt shrugs. "Is my next fight with the Avengers going to end up being a disaster?" 

"Well. We're really hoping not, Daredevil," Clint promises. "I realize this might be a touchy subject, given how everything went down, but we were hoping you could come by the Tower sometime so we can all sit down and have a talk about how we can best help each other out? We're kind of big on teamwork regardless, that's pretty much an Avengers staple, but we're pretty terrible at actually talking about the best ways to help each other. We do want to get better, though. Maybe we can finally get you over for a pizza night and we'll talk it out." 

"I suppose that would be rather useful. Maybe I'll finally let you in on my secrets at that meeting." Matt grins at him and stands up to leave, already sending his billy club out over the edge of the roof to swing over to his next fight. "See you around, Hawkeye." 

"See ya, Daredevil," Clint agrees, watching him go. And catches on to the joke a second too late, leaving him laughing alone on a rooftop like some sort of idiot. Yeah, he has a feeling Matt's going to fit in just fine with the Avengers once they work out all the kinks. 

**Author's Note:**

> Will there be sequel that lead to Hawkdevil? Perhaps... perhaps. 
> 
> Comments are lovely! Find me on Tumblr at sebbym17 or Twitter @sebbypn
> 
> eta: this has a sequel now! 'Secret Admirer'


End file.
